STOP!

Don’t read this story without going back and reading The Black Market Below Bleecker, a story I posted back in April. Today’s entry is a follow-up that takes place in the same reality and features a few callbacks to that original tale. I promise, if you read that one first, you’ll enjoy this one a lot more!

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The sphinx was having a bad day.

“No, sir, I cannot accept store credit for your wife’s childhood memory of learning to swim,” Nefertiti explained for the third time to the agitated minotaur. “The exchange rate has been terrible since that incident with the Hudson River merfolk.”

She adjusted the small, gold-rimmed glasses perched incongruously on her leonine face. Behind her, dozens of glowing memory vials arranged in meticulous rows cast a pearlescent glow over her stall, which sat between Pete’s Portable Portals and a new oxygen bar run by a family of air elementals.

“But last week you took my neighbor’s memory of his first kiss!” the minotaur protested, nostrils flaring.

“Last week the memory market hadn’t crashed because some idiot pixie tried to counterfeit celebrity recollections,” Nefertiti countered. “I’m running a business here, not a charity for nostalgic bovines.”

The minotaur huffed and stomped away, hooves clattering on the ancient cobblestones of the Black Market Below Bleecker.

Nefertiti sighed, which came out as a rumbling growl. Since taking over her uncle’s memory stall two centuries ago, she’d seen every trend come and go—dream fragments, traumatic flashbacks (those had been a particularly dark decade), first kisses, childhood birthdays. Currently, professional skills were hot commodities, with magical folk paying premium prices for memories of human coding bootcamps and Excel wizardry. The mortal world had some talents that magic couldn’t easily replicate.

As a sphinx, Nefertiti had natural talents for extracting, preserving, and transferring memories. While other memory dealers required complex spellwork or dubious potions, she could simply gaze into a customer’s eyes, purr her ancient riddle-chant, and carefully draw out the desired recollection like silk from a spider.

“Memories for sale! Premium recollections! Special this week only: bundle of childhood holiday moments, barely accessed, minimal emotional baggage!” she called out, her voice carrying down the twisting alleys of the market.

Business had been sluggish lately. That strange mortal who’d wandered in two months ago—Dave something—had apparently mentioned their location to his therapist, who’d naturally assumed it was a psychotic break. This had triggered some kind of magical defense mechanism, making the entrance to the market shift more frequently than usual. Bad for business, but better than being overrun by mortal tourists.

“Got anything that’ll help with the MCAT?” asked a young witch, her NYU Medical School hoodie clashing with her traditional pointed hat.

“I’ve got a neurosurgeon’s memory of anatomy class, barely used. He dropped out to become a day trader,” Nefertiti offered, holding up a vial containing swirling silver-blue mist. “I can give you a student discount.”

As Nefertiti completed the transaction, she noticed a tall figure in a dark coat lurking near her stall. Not unusual in itself—the market attracted plenty of shady characters—but something about this one raised her hackles. Perhaps it was the way they seemed to be watching her specifically, not browsing like the other customers.

Just before closing, when most vendors were packing up their wares and the floating lanterns were being lit, the figure finally approached.

“I’m looking for something… specific,” came a voice from beneath the hood, surprisingly human.

“Aren’t we all,” Nefertiti replied dryly. “I’m closing up, but I open at eleven tomorrow.”

“This can’t wait,” the figure insisted, pushing back their hood to reveal a woman in her forties with sharp eyes and a tense expression. “I’m willing to pay whatever it costs.”

Nefertiti’s ears perked up—”whatever it costs” was music to any merchant’s ears—but caution tempered her interest. Desperate customers were usually trouble.

“I don’t deal in illegal memories,” she said firmly. “No assassinations, no passwords, no nuclear launch codes. Market rules.”

The woman glanced around nervously. “I need to forget something. Something important. And I need it done properly, not by some back-alley memory charmer who’ll leave my brain like Swiss cheese.”

Nefertiti studied her. Humans occasionally found their way to the market—usually by accident, sometimes by design—but they rarely sought out memory dealers. They had their own methods: therapy, alcohol, prescription medications, the blessings of time.

“You’re mortal,” Nefertiti stated. “How did you find this place?”

“That doesn’t matter,” the woman said quickly. “Can you help me or not?”

Nefertiti’s tail swished thoughtfully. “Removal is trickier than acquisition. I’d need to know what memory we’re dealing with to assess the risks.”

The woman hesitated, then slid a photo across the counter. It showed what appeared to be an ordinary office building. “Everything connected to this place. Everything I saw there. Everything I heard.”

“And what exactly did you see and hear?”

The woman leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper. “Evidence that certain people in your world are working with certain people in mine. People with a lot of power and fewer scruples.”

Nefertiti’s fur bristled. Collusion between magical entities and human authorities was strictly forbidden by the Veil Treaty of 1692. The consequences of exposure would be catastrophic for both worlds.

“I’m a journalist,” the woman continued. “I was investigating corporate tax evasion—normal, boring stuff—when I followed an executive to what looked like an ordinary building. Instead, I saw…” She swallowed hard. “I saw your people. Trading with ours. Selling magic.”

“Impossible,” Nefertiti hissed. “The barriers—”

“Are being breached,” the woman finished. “Systematically. Not by accident like that confused data guy who wandered in a while back.”

Nefertiti’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about him?”

“I’ve been watching. Gathering evidence. But they know I know. I’ve been followed. My apartment was broken into yesterday. Nothing taken, just… searched.”

“So you want to forget everything you’ve discovered? Throw away your big scoop?”

The woman’s shoulders slumped. “I want to live. They’ve already…” She paused, composing herself. “Two sources disappeared. My editor’s suddenly ‘on leave.’ I need to forget this story ever existed. It’s the only way.”

Nefertiti should send her away. Market rules were clear: no involvement in mortal politics. But her sphinx nature—the part that guarded ancient knowledge—was already intrigued.

“I’ll need to see these memories first,” she decided. “To assess them properly.”

The woman nodded, relieved. “How does it work?”

“Just look into my eyes,” Nefertiti instructed, removing her glasses. “Focus on the memories you wish to lose.”

The woman complied, and Nefertiti began the ancient riddle-chant, feeling the familiar pull as memories bubbled to the surface of the human’s mind. But instead of extracting them, she merely observed, her consciousness skimming through the journalist’s recollections like pages in a book.

What she saw chilled her to the core.

A hidden room behind a corporate office. A portal, mechanically stabilized with technology rather than spellwork. Magical artifacts being handed over in exchange for documents, influence, protection. And faces—faces Nefertiti recognized from the Market Council itself.

Worse, she glimpsed something in the background of one memory: a vast warehouse containing rows of tanks. Inside each tank floated a small, glowing creature.

Fairies. Dozens of them. Harvested for their dust—the purest magical catalyst in existence.

Nefertiti pulled back, breaking the connection.

“You’ve seen enough?” the woman asked anxiously.

“More than enough,” Nefertiti replied, mind racing. This wasn’t just a treaty violation—it was exploitation on an industrial scale. “It would be… complicated to remove these memories. They’re deeply intertwined with your investigative instincts.”

“Please,” the woman begged. “I don’t care about the side effects.”

Nefertiti made a show of rummaging through her supplies while she thought. The Market Council was compromised. Who could she trust? Not the dwarf at passport control—he’d always seemed too interested in human currency. Probably not the leprechauns—they’d sell their own mothers for the right price. But perhaps…

Her gaze fell on a small business card pinned to her cork board. She’d confiscated it from a customer who’d tried to pay with counterfeit memories—a card that had mysteriously appeared in a mortal’s pocket after his visit to the market.

A mortal who might, with proper guidance, be able to return.

“I have a solution,” Nefertiti said carefully. “But not here. Too many eyes and ears. Meet me tomorrow at dusk, at the alley entrance near La Lanterna di Vittorio.”

“You’ll help me forget?”

“I’ll help you,” Nefertiti promised vaguely. “Now go. Act normal. You were just shopping for vintage curiosities.”

After the woman left, Nefertiti carefully packed a special selection of memory vials, including one containing the recollection of how to find the market no matter how it tried to hide. She’d extracted it from a particularly stubborn customer years ago.

She would need allies in both worlds to expose this conspiracy. And she knew just the reluctant, spreadsheet-obsessed mortal who might help, whether he wanted to or not.

---

Dave Winters was having another perfectly rational day. He’d successfully convinced himself that his experience two months ago was the result of stress, an undiagnosed ear infection, and possibly that experimental kombucha his coworker had insisted he try.

The fact that his watch occasionally whispered stock tips was simply a sign he needed more sleep.

The business card pinned to his bulletin board—the one he couldn’t bring himself to throw away despite its impossible claims—was merely an elaborate marketing ploy by an immersive theater company.

And the cat playing a tiny harp that appeared on his phone screen was obviously some kind of malware.

These explanations had allowed him to maintain his sanity and continue his orderly life of data analytics and precisely measured coffee portions.

Until his doorbell rang.

“Package for David Winters,” announced the delivery person, who was completely normal except for the fact that they appeared to be seven feet tall and had golden fur where skin should be.

“You’re not real,” Dave insisted automatically.

“I get that a lot,” the sphinx replied, pushing past him into his apartment. “We need to talk about memories, conspiracies, and why you haven’t used that business card yet.”

Dave closed the door and slid down against it until he was sitting on the floor.

“I knew I shouldn’t have had that second cup of coffee,” he muttered, as his watch whispered, “Buy gold futures,” and the sphinx began unpacking what looked alarmingly like glowing brain matter in bottles.

“I don’t suppose,” Dave said weakly, “that there’s a spreadsheet for this situation?”

“Actually,” said Nefertiti, adjusting her glasses, “that’s exactly what we’re going to need. How are you with data visualization? We’ve got a conspiracy to map, a journalist to protect, and a dangerous secret that could tear both our worlds apart.”

Dave sighed and reached for his laptop. “I knew I should have taken that job at Google.”